Fantastic Stories
by ExpositionFairy
Summary: Another drabble anthology, born from prompts sent to me in chat and on Tumblr to help me combat a nasty case of writer's block. Crack and drama, fluff and angst, missing scenes and AUs and crossovers: you'll find them all in this set.
1. Wipe

_In the year 8510_

_God is gonna shake it mighty then_

_He'll either say "I'll leave where man has been"_

_Or tear it down, and start again_

* * *

Alan's been staring at his laptop, and the OS restore discs next to it, for the last two hours.

Sure, it's something that happens to every computer owner at least once, even programmers with thirty years of experience under their belts. A perfectly normal service pack install gone wrong, leaving the entire system completely borked. Any normal person (_any sane person, _he thinks), would have just used the damn restore discs from the get-go; after all, that's what restore discs are_for. _ Two weeks ago, Alan would have been one of those people. And yet he's been scrambling madly all day to find _any other solution_—attempting to uninstall the service pack and start over, trying to reset from restore points, even breaking into OS12's base code in hopes of finding the error. Finally, though, Alan's been forced to come to terms with the fact that it's no use: the only way to fix the computer is a complete reformat.

The thought is paralyzing him.

He wants to tell himself that he's acting irrational, but he can't. Not after what Sam showed him the week before last. Everything he knows has been turned on its head, he's barely slept in two weeks (_1996 all over again_), and all he can think of right now is the miniature world that could possibly exist within his laptop—a world that is now a corrupted, glitching ruin. A world he has to destroy to save.

When Sam comes into Alan's office an hour or later and sees him still sitting there he doesn't say anything, just lays a hand on Alan's shoulder. Alan takes a shaky breath and finally puts the first of the discs into the drive, swearing to himself that he'll light a fire under Junior's ass down in R&D to debug OS12 Service Pack 1 before this starts happening all over the country.

Flynn used to joke about the weight of worlds resting on Encom's shoulders. Now, Alan understands.


	2. Boys' Night Out

_And the man in the back said "everyone attack!"_

_and it turned into a ballroom blitz_

* * *

"I hate you," Jalen mutters under his breath.

Gibson just grins and gives him another shove forward. "No, you don't."

Briefly Jalen considers being obstinate for the sake of obstinancy and using a physics exploit to stick himself in place, but he suspects the little glitch would just find a way around it anyway. "I'm going to kill you."

"No, you're not," Gibson replies smartly (and far too smugly, in Jalen's opinion), finally managing to propel the reluctant Alpha to the starting line of the jury-rigged, double-channeled obstacle course that Eckert and his crew have set up. "You're gonna kill _that_ guy."

The burly, dreadlocked Basic at the start of the A-channel—Blaze, Jalen thinks his name is, he recognizes him from the last time Tron kicked his ass on the lightcycle grid—glances over at him with a sneer and a contemptuous little snort, and Jalen sighs.

He's not sure how Gibson managed to talk him into coming to Eckert's enormous party in the _first_ place, let alone volunteer him for this crazy contest. Making himself look like a a gridbug in front of a spectacularly overcharged crowd of Basics and ISOs is not generally his idea of a good time. Which, on reflection, is probably why Gibson kept on ordering him drinks until he was half-overcharged himself.

Their host raises his arms from the dais. "Ladies and gentlemen, Programs of _all_ designations, if there is one function I can_ truly_ pride myself on fulfilling to my utmost capability, it is the provision of a good show. Are you ready to see our two _more_-than-worthy opponents give you a show as good as any you'll see in the arena?"

The crowd roars an affirmative, and Gibson claps Jalen on the shoulder. "See? What'd I tell you. You can't let us all down now, can you? Just think: What would Tron do?"

Jalen resists the urge to cover his face with his hands. Maybe he'll get lucky and a sinkhole fault will open up beneath him before the race can start.

"Contestants! _Are you ready_?"

"No," Jalen mutters, which of course is summarily drowned out by his "coach"'s enthusiastic affirmative.

_Oh, stop it, Jalen. Haven't you imagined yourself doing this every time you're in the audience on Game nights? Well, here's your chance. _

And Eckert himself surprises Jalen by smiling down at him from the platform…and _winking_ at him.

_What would Tron do?_

The firework that signals the start of the race explodes overhead, a glittering polyhedron in the sky, and Jalen leaps forward, disc drawn, toward the first obstacle.


	3. Kindred Spirits

At first, the Doctor is irritated when the TARDIS inexplicably decides to plunk him down in the middle of downtown Los Angeles in 2011. He'd had half a dozen other places he'd _really rather have been_, thank you very much. Not to mention he'd written off California in general as a bad job ever since that rubbish New Years in San Francisco a lifetime and a half ago (and oh, how much it hurts to think of himself as he was then, now). But then he happens upon the young dark-haired woman, cornered in an alley by the pilotfish roboforms she's somehow inexplicably attracted.

"Hello!" He calls cheerily from behind them, with a little wave. "I'm distracting you so she can hit you!" And she does.

When it's over, when the roboforms have been reduced to a deactivated heap between them, they look at each other, and know one another for what they are.

He looks human but is not. Neither is she.

He shows her the TARDIS and doesn't have to explain, because she understands how an entire world can exist within a seemingly tiny box.

She understands that everything is a miracle, that nothing is ordinary, that wonder is everywhere and anywhere for those with the capacity to look.

She understands the pain and the rage and the soul-crushing loneliness of _last_.

She refuses to travel without her own companion, a reckless young man whose world has suddenly been turned upside down—who's just realizing just how enormous the universe really is, and how dangerous, and how amazing—and even though the Doctor knows this Flynn bloke will probably drive him bonkers, he agrees to have him on board without a second thought.

The TARDIS may not always take the Doctor where he wants to go, but it always takes him where he needs to be, and for the first time since the end of the War, the Ninth Doctor is no longer alone.


	4. Campaign Reform

**EDJ_O431** Dad

**EDJ_O431** Dad I know you're online

**EDJ_O431** Dad seriously stop fucking avoiding me

**MCTRL_751 **I don't have time to listen to your whining right now. This had better be important.

**EDJ_O431** Why the hell did we just donate half a million dollars to the Santorum campaign?

**MCTRL_751 ** Because we have leverage on him.

**EDJ_O431** …why the fuck would we need leverage on Rick Santorum.

**MCTRL_751** Leverage on the President of the United States gives us a lever on the world.

**EDJ_O431** … Dad. Rick Santorum is not going to be elected president. He's not even going to be the Republican nominee. Nobody in their right fucking minds is going to vote for him.

**MCTRL_751** The minds of the voters do not calculate into this election, right or otherwise.

**EDJ_O431** Ha ha. No, seriously. You just blew half a mil on an unelectable douchetard. What the fuck are you on.

**MCTRL_751** Dillinger Systems produces electronic voting consoles. These electronic voting consoles will be running Encom OS12. I can choose any candidate I wish.

**EDJ_O431** …

**EDJ_O431** let me see if I understand you correctly

**EDJ_O431** You are seriously planning

**EDJ_O431** To rig the 2012 presidential elections

**EDJ_O431 **In favor of -Rick Santorum-

**MCTRL_751** Correct.

**EDJ_O431** … What. Are. You. On.

**MCTRL_751** Do you have any relevant input? Because I have other matters requiring my immediate attention.

**EDJ_O431** …the hell kind of leverage do we even -have- on Santorum, anyway?

**[USER MCTRL_751 HAS SENT FILE: R_ ACCEPT Y/N?]**

**EDJ_O431** Y

**EDJ_O431** …OH JESUS WHAT THE FUCK.

**MCTRL_751** End of line.

**[USER MCTRL_751 HAS LOGGED OUT]**

* * *

(For BrokenLevel, who tried to troll me by asking for Dillinger/Rick Santorum)


	5. Pro Tips

The first time Jalen tries practicing solo in the rebound chamber he set up, he nearly takes his own head off.

His next few attempts don't go much better. A botched handspring leaves him sprawled ungracefully on his back, groaning from the impact of the floor against his disc port. An attempt to catch a high-speed ricochet ends with a damaged glove and a stinging score across the palm of his hand. By the middle of the session Jalen is panting and disheveled, looking for all the world like he's fought his way out of a gridbug nest, and is pretty well convinced that this is the stupidest idea he's ever had.

He's picking himself up off the floor from his latest near-miss dodge when a voice calls from the sidelines: "You're throwing too hard."

Jalen looks up, startled, to see Tron—_of all people_—watching him from just outside the chamber's entry port with an amused expression. His immediate urge is to scramble for his disc, dock it, and pretend he's been doing something, _anything _else, but he has the sinking feeling it's far too late for that._Users, how long has he been watching…?_

"Greetings, Tron…I wasn't…I mean, I was just…"

"You're putting too much power into your throws," Tron repeats, entering the chamber. He picks up Jalen's disc from the floor, holding it out to the taller ISO. "Disc Wars matches are about timing and precision as much as speed and strength. I can show you some tricks, if you like."

Jalen's eyes widen, and he takes his disc back with a hesitant, disbelieving smile. "Ah…yes, I would like that. If you've got the time."

Tron nods with a smile of his own, then undocks his own disc, taking up a basic starting stance and motioning Jalen to follow his movements. "Here. Set your feet a bit wider, and pay attention to the angle of your throw. Like so…"

They practice together for the next thirty microcycles or so, and by the time they've parted Jalen's gone from thinking that this was the stupidest idea he's ever had to thinking that maybe, just maybe, he can do this after all.


	6. Dead Air

_And the ground caved in_

_between where we were standing..._

* * *

Flynn is hiding, and Clu hates him for it.

There was never a time before now when Clu couldn't feel Flynn within him. He'd never needed the light of the open Portal to tell him that Flynn was on the Grid; he'd simply known. They shared a face, a voice. They'd finished each other's sentences, sometimes. He'd shared Flynn's dreams, seen hazy images of the world of the Users through Flynn's eyes, and he knows Flynn dreamed of him, of_their_ world, when he was gone. They'd shared a _vision_.

That Flynn is hiding physically from him is bad enough. But he's hiding himself, his _soul_, too, leaving nothing but a distant spark to indicate he's even still alive, and the cold absence where his Creator's presence had once lived makes Clu burn with rage.

The Games are on this millicycle, and Clu participates, to the mingled shock and uneasy delight of the crowd, taking on a team of six captive Programs in the Final Round. Disc Wars is not ordinarily his sport—he's always preferred the thrill of the lightcycle derbies—but tonight he tears through his opponents with vicious, savage gusto. Two of them bear the bright green circuitry of Bostrumite ISOs, dragged out from their underground knotholes, and Clu pays them special attention, eschewing disc to tear one of them limb from limb barehanded and driving his fist through the chest of the other.

_Can you feel this?_ Clu thinks, as the second of the ISOs crumbles into nothing around his fingers. _Can you see? I know you can. Come for me, stop me, __**answer**__**me**__!_

Flynn never does.

* * *

(A _Symbiosis_ sidestory)


	7. Recognition

Alan's first instinct when he hears the pulsing rumble of an aircraft engine and sees its searchlights piercing through the arched window over the desk is to run for the door. His second instinct, the wiser, is to stay right where he is, lie low until whatever strange craft is out there (it's flying low like a helicopter but sounds nothing at all like one) moves on. Then he can concentrate on figuring out what's happened to him and where he is.

It turns out to be pointless, in the end. The aircraft lands just outside, sending a tremor through the floor, and Alan's barely even managed to lever himself out of his seat before the door slides aside and figures march into the room. There are four of them, wearing blank black helmets that hide their faces and strange black armor outlined in stripes of neon red, and they are carrying staves. Alan swallows.

_I am dreaming_, he thinks. _I fell asleep at the arcade at Kevin's desk, because it is 2:30 in the morning, and I am having a nightmare. Like the ones I used to have after Kevin disappeared._

But the armored figures are surrounding him now, laying hands on him, and this is far more vivid than any nightmare he remembers. Alan has to fight to keep his balance as he's turned roughly in a complete circle, the blank masks leaning in closer, examining him. One of the (_soldiers? guards? what __**are**__ they?_) reaches up and removes his glasses, and he jerks. "What—hey—!"

They've all gone still now, looking at each other, making Alan more nervous than ever. One of them whispers a name.

"…I'm sorry, I don't understand what's happening here, but you're mistaken. My name is—"

But before he can continue they've got hold of him again, pulling him toward the door and whatever lies beyond.


	8. Workplace Disputes

Gibson can feel the User—and the oncoming lecture—approaching before he's even halfway to the bar. _Nope, not anywhere near intoxicated enough for this yet,_ he decides, downing his entire drink at one go before turning lazily in his barstool to face Flynn with his customary smirk. "Yo. Order a guy a drink?"

Flynn raises an eyebrow. "Dunno about that, man…heard you've gotten into plenty of trouble today already."

Gibson just shrugs, still smirking, as though hearing those words from the Creator doesn't sting. "That's me, always."

"Apparently you really pissed in Clu's cornflakes, shutting down the processing plant like that."

Gibson grins at that. He can't help it. "I have no idea what that means, but you just made my day." He raises a hand idly, flagging down the bartender and ordering another round. "You want?"

Flynn just sighs. "Gibson, you started a riot."

_And here we go_. Gibson has to fight the urge to grit his teeth at the blatant skewing of events. "Is that what you heard? Don't get me wrong, I'm flattered, but three guys on one isn't _exactly_ a riot."

"You beat the task manager into standby—"

"Did they tell you about how they were harassing Cayce?" Gibson cuts him off, unable to keep the anger out of his voice anymore. "Did they mention the part where they almost shoved her into the glitching output beam when she tried to get them to leave her the hell alone so she could get back to her job? Bet they conveniently left that part out, huh. Nope, it was just Gibson, incorrigible troublemaker, stirring up errors and being a hazard to the workplace as usual." He turns back to the bar and grabs his drink, knocking back half of it in an attempt to calm himself down before he starts ranting at the User, who he's always considered a friend.

Flynn, for his part, stays quiet for a long moment. "…I'll talk to Clu," he says, finally. "He'll listen to me. I'll get you reinstated. I'm sorry, man, I should have looked harder at both sides. But man, you gotta realize getting violent like that isn't gonna solve anything."

He means it, too, and for Gibson that almost makes it worse. "…you don't think I know that?" he sighs. "And don't worry about it. Going back to work there would just make things worse on everyone else." He takes another drink before going on. "…we're building a new colony. Out in the Outlands. Someplace we can take the pressure off the people who don't want us here and have a safe place to ourselves. I've been asked to help set it up, and I agreed."

Flynn looks stricken. "Gibson, are you sure…? We need…_I_ need your skills here, man, you can't leave."

Gibson smiles a little. "Thanks, friend. But they need me more. And besides, it's not like I'm running off to hide in a cave forever, are you kidding me? This city'd get too boring without me." He leans back against the bar, feeling his usual grin coming back, even if he doesn't quite feel it all the way through. "And you know you're welcome out there anytime."

Flynn regards Gibson sadly for another few nanos, and then finally heaves a sigh and smiles. "Well, if I can't convince you to stay, then I better wish you luck." He reaches for his drink, raising his glass. "To better tomorrows."

Gibson raises his own. "That, I can drink to, among other things. Better tomorrows for everyone."


	9. Someday

By the time Tron arrives at the scene, it's already a mess.

He'd recieved and acknowledged Yori's distress call fifteen microcycles ago, double-timing it out to the site of the new Sailer junction node at breakneck speeds. On approach he can already see the disintegrating corpses of several gridbugs scattered around the glitching, staticky, half-crumbled scaffolding of the tower. More importantly he can see Jalen, defending Yori and one of the junior compilers—Roark, Tron thinks his name is—from what looks to be the last of the bugs. His cloak is torn to shreds and he's got a nasty bite wound below one knee, but he's fighting as hard as any Security program and Tron has never regretted the Disc Wars lessons he's been giving the ISO architect less.

Jalen finally manages to tear the thing's head off just as Tron jumps out of the runner to assist. He staggers briefly, but waves off Tron's attempt to steady him with a hasty "I'm fine!"

"Status report—is everyone alright?" Tron asks, nodding briefly to Jalen before striding quickly over to Yori.

Yori nods at him with a relieved smile. "Affirmative. We're fine, if a little banged up. Those bugs hit us out of nowhere, had Roark and I cornered. I got one of them but then the second one ate my staff, if Jalen hadn't jumped down from the lift—"

Yori's report is cut off by a yelp and a thud from off to the side, and Tron turns just in time to see Roark shove Jalen to the ground. "It's all his fault anyway!" Roark snarls. "Those bugs would never have set on us if we weren't forced to work with this _glitch magnet, _why anyone would let one of them near vital infrastructure in the first place is past my ability to calculate—"

"Roark!" Yori exclaims.

"From where I was standing, it looked to me like the 'glitch magnet' was saving your life," Tron observes mildly. "And shoving your coworkers around like that—under _any_ circumstance—is a good way to get yourself relegated to error-checking blueprints for the rest of your runtime. _Especially_ when you do it in front of Security." He punctuates this advice with a pointed stare at Roark, who backs off with a mutter, and turns back to Jalen, offering him a hand. "All right?"

Jalen just nods quietly and takes the proffered hand, pulling himself back up off the ground and wincing as his injured leg tries to give out under him. He wonders absently if there's some force out in the wider universe that has it out for him, why the one person on the Grid he admires most short of the Creator himself _never fails_ to walk in on him when he's at his worst.

"Thank you," he sighs, once he's solidly back on his feet. "I'm sorry about all of this, I—_LOOK OUT_!"

He knows he's too late. The gridbug has already reared up behind Tron to strike before the first warning word is even halfway out of his mouth, and he's still holding Tron's left hand—his dominant hand, the one he always leads with in their practice matches. Tron never hesitates, though, reaching back with his off hand to undock his disc and whirling smoothly to slice the bug in two, spraying the four of them with gleaming green fragments. _He can't be that fast, __**no-one's**__ that fast, Users, I couldn't even track his movement…!_

For several long moments, all Jalen can do is stare at Tron with a goggle-eyed expression of unfettered awe that he hasn't worn the like of since his earliest cycles. Finally he realizes that he's still holding onto Tron's hand and drops it like it were burning.

Someday, Jalen vows to himself as he fights to keep a blush from flashing through his circuits. Someday, Tron will finally see him at his best.


	10. Perfected

_And in darkness all that I can see_

_The frightened and the weak_

_Are forced to cling to mistakes they know nothing of_

_At mercy are the meek_

* * *

It used to be, in the earliest cycles of Clu's reign, that the nights when the Games were held were actually something of a relief. For the Programs unlucky enough to have been conscripted, it meant that at least things could get no worse—no more running or hiding or going about one's life in fear, constantly looking over your shoulder and wondering if you were going to be the next to be swept up. For the Programs in attendance or in the smouldering (but not quite extinguished) Resistance or simply living everyday lives in the city, it meant that you were safe for the night, that as horrifying as the Games were to contemplate, at least it wasn't _you_ in the Arena.

Also, it meant that Rinzler was busy.

Now, though, a new shadow haunts Tron City and the Outlands beyond, and there is no relief on Game nights, not anymore.

Resistance fighters and the last remnants of the ISOs have long learned to fear the low, grinding flicker of noise that accompanies the Administrator's top enforcer. The new assassin is small and slim and utterly silent, and no one sees or senses her coming until she is on them, her sword slicing through her targets with a savagery entirely unlike Rinzler's cold precision. Her circuits are never seen until her weapon finds its mark, the long strips of bloody neon red the last thing her victims see as they crumble into nothing.

She still bears her ISO mark, and does not hide it. Once, not long after Clu had claimed her, she'd tried to carve it away with her own blade, but Clu had stopped her. He likes it, he says, and tells her she should wear it proudly as a sign to all who see her.

Anyone, _everything_ can be perfected, in the end.


	11. This Isn't Happening

_This isn't happening._

The thought has been repeating itself in Clu's mind ever since Flynn's lightcycle first began to yaw and wobble as they drove back from the Sea, skipping and stuttering over and over in an endless loop as his User veers and finally crashes, voxels splashing against the rocks. He clings to it like a mantra as he pulls his bike to a shrieking halt and rushes to Flynn's side.

_This isn't happening._

The User—_his_ User, his _Creator_—is screaming and writhing, and as badly as Clu wants to believe it's only from injuries sustained in the crash, he knows what's really causing it. He can see the black slime on Flynn's hands and clothes spreading, crawling, disintegrating fabric, eating into his flesh.

_This isn't happening._

He hadn't even flinched when Flynn had waded into the contaminated water. Flynn was a _User, _and he hadn't created the virus to harm Users. Only to prevent the Sea from spawning more ISOs—practically viroid in their own right, as far as Clu was concerned—and of course any ISO stupid enough to touch the water would probably meet a rather unpleasant end. He'd been so _careful_, dammit, unwilling to accept anything less than perfection in his engineering before he'd released it into the Sea.

_This isn't happening._

He drops to his knees at Flynn's side, tearing at the remains of his clothing, trying to get the contaminated fabric off of his User's body, but it's too late. The virus is flowing up his neck with liquid, undisciplined speed, across his face, into his eyes.

"No…_NO!_"

Flynn screams again, a distorted, accusing howl, and Clu stumbles back, his face a mask of horror. Flynn actually seems to be _melting_ now, swirling flashes of yellow-green light twisting through the black like the sheen on an oil spill, and Clu can't look anymore.

_This isn't happening._

Finally the screams die down into choked gurgles, and then silence altogether. Clu remains frozen on his knees, back turned, shaking so hard he fears he'll shake himself apart if it doesn't stop soon. Surely Flynn isn't dead. He can't be. Clu would never have created something that could concievably harm his creator. This is a waking nightmare, brought on by the stress of trying to hold the Grid together and watching Flynn crash. When he turns, Flynn will be there, scraped and banged up and possibly unconscious, but otherwise perfectly whole and alive. If he could just get himself to turn…

Razor-sharp claws suddenly close around Clu's calf, piercing and burning, and Clu screams.

_This isn't happening._


End file.
